Hamas is now what Al-Qaeda became after 9/11

The aftermath of the shocking terror strike against Israel is only beginning to unravel. The attack was mounted by Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah or Hamas, an Islamist militia movement, and a proscribed terror group in multiple countries, anchored around the Palestinian cause . The scale of this attack was not anything witnessed by Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It has also severely dented Israel’s celebrated model of water-tight ‘securitisation’. The Israel-Palestine conflict has defined West Asian politics for generations. However, the October 7 attack will set a new precedent for the region’s future security designs. Hamas largely operates around the Palestine cause itself, and has rarely jumped into other battlefields around the world. While its name is known well around West Asia, and the Palestine cause has been a case towards mobilisation for Islamist groups for decades, narrative-wise Hamas was never a household name beyond a point unlike Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh). Until now.